What would you do? Looking for Water Cooling Advice

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OldM3ta

[H]ard|Gawd
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I own a Cooler Master CM 690 II Advanced case.

http://www.coolermaster.com/product.php?product_id=6638

I have a Sandy Bridge i5-2500K processor. I want to run it at atleast 4.0GHz each core. It's currently sitting in there with a Corsair H50. Idle temps are around 35-40, load temps are around 60-62 (both Celsius).

I have a PNY XLR8 GTX 580. However, I think if I want to water cool it, I'll be voiding the warranty and having to purchase a $100 or so waterblock.

I am game to purchase the MSI watercooled GTX 580 instead, and sell off the PNY.

What I want is to make this computer as cool and quiet as possible without spending unnecessarily to do so. It now looks like I'll be having to use it as my main rig which will be on for 16 hours a day or so, indefinitely. Right now, it's not necessarily loud, but it does generate some audible noise and spits out enough heat to warm up the room. I'd like to offset that and I'm thinking water cooling.

So what would you do? I can keep the Corsair H50 and create a single loop for the GTX 580, or sell off the Corsair H50 and go for a two step CPU/GPU loop. I don't know what parts would serve me best in the case of my components, o/c aim, and case.

By the way, I have a Corsair 850w in there and three case fans.
 
Watercooling will not offset how much heat it produces. Your room will heat up the same amount with or without watercooling. The only thing watercooling would do is keep your temperatures closer to ambient temperatures.

Most graphics card manufacturers allow aftermarket cooling. I can't find anything in PNY's warranty specifically stating that it prohibits aftermarket coolers.

For that case, the best way is to have 1 2x120 radiator on the bottom and a 2x140 radiator on the top. It'll be much cheaper to do 2 2x120 radiators though. Of course, the bottom radiator will only fit if you have 3 or less hard drives, and your power supply isn't too long.

Why not max out your case on fans first, and see what cooling performance that leaves you? As I recall, that case fits 2 120 fans (bottom and rear) and 5 140 fans (1 in front, 2 on side panel, and 2 on top). Certainly much cheaper than watercooling, and having fans blowing directly on your GPU should reduce temps on it by quite a bit.
 
Thanks for that awesome response. I still would like to hear what other readers suggest. But in response to your suggestion, Tsumi, I am now wondering about something.

Can heat put out by the hottest computer components (CPU and GPU) be minimized so that the heat the computer puts out as a whole is less?

I find it odd that your response suggests the answer to the question is no, or maybe I have misunderstood.

Nevertheless, in the case of keeping the PNY and adding after market coolers and fans to the case, I am wondering if this would raise the noise level of the machine too much? Would the fan setup end up cooling down the area around the computer as well, or just making the area around the computer have to dissipate more of the heat?
 
Heat output is the same, regardless of cooling method. That is a fact. There is no way to get around heat being output, power consumed is power consumed. The only way to make the system make less heat is to use less voltage and downclock.

Adding fans may or may not create more noise, this entirely comes down to what fans you use. Basically, what adding fans do is move more air through the computer, so that air inside the computer stays closer to ambient temps. Once again, this will not reduce the amount of heat your computer puts out.
 
MeTaSpARKs said:
Can heat put out by the hottest computer components (CPU and GPU) be minimized so that the heat the computer puts out as a whole is less?
Click to expand...

no, the amount of energy is the same. what watercooling does is transfer that energy(converted to heat) from the cpu to the air in your room more efficiently.
 
Thanks guys! I'll look into getting top of the line, silent fans for the case then. I figure getting more of ones with less dba and rpm will be better than getting fewer with higher cfm and average dbas.
 
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One thing else is bothering me now.

Wouldn't water cooling lower both idle and load temperatures, therefore then reducing the amount of heat that leaves the computer case?
 
It will feel cooler leaving the case, because the heat is spread throughout a larger volume of air. It reduces idle and load temps because, as we said before, it moves the heat more efficiently somewhere else (moves it away from the GPU and CPU much quicker). Once again, it has nothing to do with how much heat is produced, the lower temps are a direct result of a much more efficient heat dissipation mechanism only.

Just accept the fact that the amount of heat produced will always remain the same no matter what you do, unless you overclock or underclock.
 
Like the others have mentioned, its basic physics concepts. Power in = Power out

All your doing with water cooling is transferring the heat more efficiently because its going through a different medium, in this case, water vs air. Heat is a form of energy. The amount of energy your processor gives off is going to stay the same because of the power it consumes. Power is directly proportional to the voltage used in the system. Therefor the only way to lower the total energy given off or power consumed in the system is by lowering the voltage, but thats counter productive.

Water is just simply a more efficient means of transferring that energy.

Its just like this scenario. If you have a refrigerator plugged in and turned on in a sealed room with the door of the refrigerator open, will the room heat up or cool down? Heat up. There is constantly more energy being brought into the room through the outlet, and its getting dumped into the room with no where to go.

So if you want to get really picky, The room in which your computer is in, would actually have more energy thrown into it because water cooling is more efficient(@ taking heat away from the CPU and relocating it) , and would actually be hotter. But only ever so slightly.
 
Thanks guys.. great info here. I hope it gets read by many others who had the same misconception on it that I had.
 
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